Friday, April 5, 2013

Hailing
from Anderson, South
Carolina, Chadwick Boseman is an accomplished actor, scriptwriter
and playwright who, until now, was probably best known for portraying the
character Nate on the critically-acclaimed dramatic TV series Lincoln Heights.
Prior to entering show business, Chad
earned degrees at Howard University and the British
American Dramatic
Academy at Oxford.

Here, he talks about playing Jackie
Robinson opposite Harrison Ford and Nicole Beharie in 42, a biopic about the
late Hall of Famer’s historic breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier
back in 1947.

Kam
Williams: Hi Chad, thanks for the interview.

Chad Boseman:
Nice to talk to you, Kam.

KW:
Editor/Legist Patricia Turnier says: I appreciate the opportunity to ask you a
question, especially because everything changed for Jackie Robinson in my
hometown of Montreal.
What did it mean to you to portray Jackie Robinson and how did you prepare for
the role?

CB:
It’s just a great honor to play him. In order to portray him, I basically paid
attention to three different aspects of the role. First, the physical aspect of
baseball, and his five-day-a-week workout regimen starting with Spring Training
in the middle of January all the way to May. Secondly, I studied Hall of Fame
footage of Jackie so that I could emulate his batting stance, how he took
leads, how he ran bases, the arm slide he used in certain situations, and his
fielding style. Thirdly, there was the question of how to attack the role. I
didn’t want to just do an imitation. I wanted to interpret it while remaining
faithful to the script and [director] Brian Helgeland’s vision.

The
research also included reading, and talking to Jackie’s widow, Rachel, and his
daughter, Sharon, in order to deliver the most authentic interpretation of him
possible.

KW:
Documentary filmmaker Kevin Williams asks: Was the role at
all intimidating to you? Did you feel any pressure to get Jackie
right, given his importance in history?

CB:
Yes, because Jackie is a hero to people from so many walks of life whose
reverence for him is often based on different interpretations of who he
was.I also felt a certain amount of
responsibility to give an accurate account of his life and the person that he
was for the benefit of the youth who don’t know him. But I still felt a great
responsibility to Rachel Robinson and his family. She has carried on his legacy
for decades, and she’s carried the torch for this film. So, my main goal was to
do right by her.

KW:
Peter Brav says: You were absolutely awesome in the role. My
85 year-old mother, a concentration camp survivor, embraced the Brooklyn
Dodgers when she came to this country in 1946. She saw 42 and hasn't stopped
talking about how you ARE Jackie in the movie. Prior to auditioning, how much
of the Jackie Robinson story did you know?

CB:
I knew his story since I was a kid. My parents told me stories about him. And I
learned about him, Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders at church.
I didn’t know anything about Jackie’s personality, or the specifics about his
family or where he came from. So, I went into the audition with very limited
knowledge of the facts that you would need to play him.

KW: Kate Newell asks: In doing this film, what did you find out about Jackie
Robinson that surprised you the most?

CB:
I was surprised that he was considering quitting baseball just before he was signed
by the Dodgers’ GM Branch Rickey [played by Harrison Ford]. He had become disenchanted with barnstorming
across the country in the Negro League for several reasons: he often had to
play several games a day; there were a lot of places where African-Americans
couldn’t stop to eat, sleep, buy gas or even use the bathroom; and he wasn’t
being paid enough at a time when the most important thing to him was taking
care of his family. I was also surprised that baseball was only his fourth best
sport. He had greatness in him already. He was an All-American football player,
a great basketball player, and he could’ve gone to the Olympics in track and
field. Jackie was a better athlete than his brother Mack who had been a silver
medalist behind Jesse Owens in the 200 Meters at the ’36 Olympics in Berlin. So, Jackie was
well aware of his talents but felt very frustrated by the fact that there was
no place in the United
States at that time where a black man could
fully actualize himself. Fortunately, baseball became that place where he could
reach his full potential, although he might have achieved it in other sports. But
that frustration of his potentiality almost made Jackie quit.

KW:
Harriet Pakula-Teweles says: Jackie Robinson encountered extraordinary
obstacles on account of the color of his skin pursuing his professional
baseball career. Have you encountered similar obstacles in your acting career?

KB:
Well, you don’t get the same opportunities as white actors. Every year, Hollywood is looking for
that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love
with. But they’re not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or
Sidney Poitier. Some of that is due to the fact that even in our educational
process we’re taught history from a totally Eurocentric perspective. And so
it’s no surprise that we grow up to value European literature. Since we don’t value
our own history, African-American stories don’t get made into movies as much. Your
being the protagonist or the hero is not a fundamental part of our culture. That’s
what I run up against trying to get cast as an actor, and that’s what I feel
needs to change. It’s very difficult to make strides to play big roles in big
movies when our culture doesn’t support it and therefore the movies can’t.

KW:
What did you major in at Howard, Acting or Black
Studies?

CB:
I majored in directing. However, I did spend some time at the Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, so I
am somewhat well-versed in African Studies.

KW:
If you could have one wish instantly granted, what would
that be for?

CB:
One wish instantly granted? Woo! I would love for my grandmother and my sister to
have been able to see this movie. They both passed.

KW:
My condolences Chad. Thanks again for the time,
and best of luck with 42.

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The Sly Fox Film Reviews

KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.